


Scratch, Scratch

by rispacooper



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, Food Sex, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for stop_drop_porn. Prompt: Marshmallows. Fraser is thinking about Ray in the middle of the night, and then Ray shows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scratch, Scratch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pir8fancier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pir8fancier/gifts).



I only just fell asleep when the noise woke me up. It was a faint noise, a small noise, something that doubtless would not have woken up anyone else in the entire city of Chicago. But it had woken me, and something about it set my heart racing, made my muscles stiffen with expectation, and I lay still, waiting for more.

There were crickets outside, the whirr of the small fan on my desk that I had aimed at my cot, sirens miles and miles away, a jackhammer. And then, the same noise again, not quite fully audible even to my rather well-developed sense of hearing. It was scratching at my consciousness and demanding my attention, but toeing the line, staying just outside of anything I knew or could name, as though it was aware I couldn’t resist seeking the knowledge. And that was ridiculous, a sound, a noise being capable of thought. I shook my head, rubbing at my eyes. It was the heat interrupting my sleep patterns, leaving me restless and paranoid, making my mouth form words that didn’t quite describe what I was hearing; rustling, sneaky, persistent, careful, clumsy, trouble.

Trouble. My eyes opened wide as I glanced around, looking for a figure that of course wasn’t there. It the heat of Chicago summers they do public works and construction during the night, and for a moment I could almost smell hot tar, see the flashing lights warning me that this way lies danger, hear the rough voices of workers swearing, wondering if I was some kind of freak. I am, I know I am, because even in the heat and even knowing there were only a few scants hours until morning, I sit up soundlessly and creep to my office door.

The bothersome noise is some distance away and muffled by layers of red carpeting and wood panels, but I press my ear to the door, considering using my office phone to call Ray. But of course, Ray would not answer. He, as he had told me hours before, stepping in close to breathe the words against my mouth, was going to be out. _Fuck this, Fraser, I’m out_ , he had hissed, his eyes wild and furious. He was going to be at a bar, or perhaps, if I had read his intentions correctly and considering the late hour, he was no longer at the bar but with someone.

With someone. It strikes me once again how delicately such things are often phrased in the dating world. Alcohol streaming through bloodstreams, thick flooding heat, tongues lapping at wet fingers, twined bodies and sweat, and the dizzy possibility of no regrets, swallowing, swallowing bitter seed and sweet nectar. Sex. Making love. Fucking. That is Ray’s word. And that is what Ray is doing. Ray is _with someone_.

My fingers curl around the doorknob, too tightly, but it keeps me on my feet as I try to focus, to recall the danger that faces me here, now.

Again, I hear determined scratching. It was not one of the normal sounds of the city around me that I have learned to ignore, nor was it a sound that I associate with the papered walls of the Consulate.

Inspector Thatcher had once seen fit to tell me that the Consulate had been plagued with the same rat problem that seemed to affect many parts of Chicago. _Once upon a time, before your wolf_ , she had added, with her mouth softening just enough to imply that there was one thing about Dief’s presence here that she approved of.

Of course Diefenbaker was not with me now; he out was in the cooler night air, no doubt up to the same activities as Ray. But I have no more right to dwell on that than I do on anything else. Ray’s wants, Ray’s needs, I do not understand them and do not think I ever will. It is not my place to try, Ray has made that clear.

The night after our return home from our pirate adventure and near-death in the Henry Allen, Ray had seemed troubled, unduly concerned with the meaning of my attempt to save his life. Concerned, I had thought, until he had taken my hand and placed it between his legs, telling me to help him, whispering that he couldn’t breathe.

Ray’s mouth soft under mine, sucking air, moving. Ray’s dick hard under my palm. Dick, another Ray word, dirty and raw like a schoolboy writing on the wall, like Ray, rubbing himself shamelessly against me, begging me with lips and eyes, to kiss him, to help him breathe, and so I had pressed him to the couch and done all of that. There was no denying Ray, even cursing against my lips, wriggling beneath me, scorching the ceiling with obscenities _Fuck, Fraser, no idea…just…fuck yes…Fraser, Fraser, please…_ as though I were the one doing Ray the favor.

I would have risked another drowning to be allowed to lick the salt from Ray’s throat once more, to feel the living velvet of Ray’s arousal against my palm.

But I would not risk Ray. And I had promised him solemnly afterward. _No more crazy shit, Fraser_ , he had announced suddenly, his arms wrapped around his chest as he had crouched on one end of his own sofa. _No more crazy shit, Ray_ , I had repeated quietly, and he had frowned. But I didn’t need road signs to tell me what Ray had meant by demanding such a promise.

The sounds are growing louder, more definite, and through the clumsy bumps and hushed rustling I get the impression of a mess being made. Though I likely would not have used it, I can’t help but think of Ray’s worries about my lack of a weapon. But if an addict has broken into the Consulate in search of drugs or money, the best thing for them would be my help, not to be on the business end of a gun. However, that situation is unlikely; the noise of an entrance like that would have woken me sooner, and I find my mind wandering to the window I had opened for Dief’s return, and the possibility of raccoons.

Bold and clever creatures, unafraid even of Diefenbaker if there were enough of them, and I head quietly down the stairs and pause, listening again before turning toward the kitchen.

I can see light arrowing from the half-closed door and blink, because raccoons would not need that. And then as I put a hand behind me, for the partner that is not there, I hear the noise again, the firm shutting of a cabinet door, the slide of grasping fingers on thin cardboard, and then Ray, Ray’s voice, Ray’s low, nonsensical mumbling in the same poetic cadence that Ray only achieved when he had been already going for awhile, working himself up to something.

I pull in a long breath, and then put my hand to the door and pushed it open.

“Ray.” I speak quietly, but Ray is turning before I had even fully entered the room.

“Fraser.” Ray answers back, and his slow grin means that he thinks he is being clever. If he is mocking me, I have no desire to ask why. Not in early hours of morning when the air is only just beginning to cool and the space between us smells of smoke and whiskey and cologne. Ray is still wearing his clothes from earlier, tight jeans, black and ripped, tight shirt with rolled sleeves showing stripes of white. I notice a band next to his bracelet on one wrist, as black as the rings under his eyes.

I tear my gaze away from his face, the sweat-dark edges of his hair, the rough pink of his lips, and drop it instead to his hands.

Ray is holding a red, rectangular box with a smiling cartoon face splashed over one side, and he finishes turning while I watch, twisting from the cabinets to face me, the lower half of his body disappearing behind the low island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Ray,” I say it again, whispering though the Consulate is abandoned for the night, and Ray’s face scrunches with what most closely resembles amusement, except that his blue eyes seem too fierce as they sweep over me, and he works his jaw as he lowers his gaze over me again.

My hand comes up, and I rub at my neck when I realize that I am still wearing the sleeveless shirt and shorts I wore to bed. The material is white and thin, but I do not think it is the chilling air that makes me shiver.

“Yeah, it’s me. Ray.” Ray speaks at last, prodding me with a grin still too sharp for humour, but I nod and close the door behind me, glancing quickly around the slightly disturbed look of Constable Turnbull’s normally spotless kitchen.

“Did you…ah…need something, Ray?” I reconsider the opened window and Ray’s somewhat legally grey knowledge of breaking and entering practices for a moment, and when I turn back to him the intense blue of his gaze makes me swallow.

“Yeah.” I almost jump when Ray finally speaks again, and shut my jaw tight to keep back my response. “Yeah I did, Ben-buddy.” There is something, something like before in Ray’s voice, in the soft drum of his fingers on the countertop. He rolls his shoulders and juts his chin out, moving with an energy that suggest his thoughts are bottling up in his mind, that the right words haven’t formed yet, for now coming out too slow.

I look away and clear my throat, but there’s nothing for me to say that I haven’t told Ray before, in my fashion.

“Sweet.” The word is heavy on Ray’s tongue, and this time I do jump, straightening with my back to the door. His fingers stroke the glaring red of the box. _I can’t breathe_ , he had told me, pleading for me to save him, but his breath had been rich and hot. I ought to turn and keep my eyes away this time. I cannot. “I wanted something sweet.” Ray pitches his words low, and I wonder if he knows that we are alone here, if I can lie and say Turnbull was sleeping nearby.

“It’s been a while since I had something sweet, Fraser.” Four weeks. Four weeks of careful, distant observation, of Ray looking at others and slapping my back for cases solved and jobs well done, like there had never been that night between us, because he had made me promise, _no more crazy shit_. And I had kept my hands at my sides and suffered the burning touch of Ray’s eyes on me, his blond eyebrows arched up like they were now.

“Sweet...?” I had watched Ray pour candy into his coffee that morning, had watched his first cup, second cup slide past his lips. My voice was raised and I let out a breath, and lifted my chin so I would not have to meet Ray’s eyes. “The Consulate is happy to help you, Ray, but normal hours of operation are…”

“Normal?” Ray snorts as though as he is terribly amused at me giving him my Consulate voice as he calls it, and then he’s tearing into the box. The large, grinning face on the side appears to be wearing a green hat and a four-leaf clover, but before I can remark on that, Ray pulls out a handful of strange shapes and scatters them across the counter.

“Constable Turnbull will have to clean this, Ray.” Ray ignores my warning and spreads some more on the counter, pushing aside the brown pieces in favor of the most brightly colored ones. I noticed blue moons and yellow stars and pink hearts and then my mouth falls open as Ray picks up one of those and lays it on his tongue. It disappears a moment later, and I can see Ray’s cheeks move as he sucks it inside his mouth.

“What…what are those, Ray?”

“Marshmallows, Fraser.” He grabs another, something green. His tongue reaches for this one, and I see it melt, dissolve in the heat of his mouth. “Don’t they have marshmallows in the frozen north?” Ray asks me, his fingers toying with the candy bits laid out in front of him. He takes his time before choosing a star. It’s small, neon yellow, and I think of fluffy white cylinders, of hot cocoa, of sweet potatoes in American commercials. But I can’t get the objection out of my mouth. I shake my head instead. Those are not marshmallows.

Ray grabs two, a pastel rainbow, a red oval-shaped blob, and then holds out his hand. The bracelet falls back against the strange, new wristband as he offers them to me, and I focus on that. From the corner of my eye I can see him use his other hand to pop more in his mouth, his tongue is a swirling mix of color and sugar. His eyes are bright.

I can smell the whiskey, it permeates the air around Ray, but he is standing steady, and his gaze is bold. He is black and white stripes and startling artificial color, and I frown as I realize I am moving closer.

“Ray.” I say it again, I feel as though I am always saying his name, and Ray is grinning, the amused smile that cuts right through flesh. I drop my head, and there is Ray’s hand, palm up, offering me…strange, foreign marshmallows.

My tongue darts out, as he knew it would, and the candies are suddenly sticky. I roll them into my mouth. They are wet now, syrupy sweet, grainy melting sugar. I swallow what’s left of them and look up at Ray.

“Knew you’d like ‘em.” Ray grunts as though he has been thinking of this for a long time and not minutes. As though he has imagined me eating from his hand for four weeks, and if that is so it isn’t far from the truth. I think my lips part again, and I shape the word, vaguely wondering if this is another cultural difference.

“Marshmallows…” I echo him, questioning, and Ray nods. I haven’t asked him where he went tonight, or why he is here now. He answers me anyway.

“There’s something I gotta do, Fraser.” He tells me seriously, and for the first time I see the shine on his face, the evidence that he has at least had one or two drinks, and not his usual beer.

He sets aside the box and steps out from behind the island. He runs his hands through his hair and rubs at his mouth.

“I…I can’t breathe here, Fraser,” he says, as though we’re back in his apartment after the Henry Allen, as though he wants another demonstration of buddy breathing that will lead to more kisses and a chance to touch him once more. But then he puts his hand out, and there’s no candy marshmallows in his palm, just streaks of color and a hint of my saliva. “Can you breathe over there, Fraser?”

I move, and feel my bare foot graze the island. I think I am shaking my head, but it doesn’t matter, because my mouth is open and I am gasping and Ray is sliding forward.

His hand clutches my shirt, and he yanks, pushes, maneuvers me so that my back is against the island and then his fingers are spreading over my chest, smoothing, petting. His eyes dart to my face, then down again, and then his frown is the last thing I see before he plants his mouth on mine, his lips open for a quick, panicked breath.

It is my breath, as though I am Ray in the icy, dark water, trembling lips easing open at the suggestion of tongue, and I let my head fall back, my mouth fall open. Ray is tasting me. I sigh, and he breathes that in. He says my name, and I taste the jolt of strange marshmallows, the mellow burn of whiskey.

Ray’s fingers curl into my skin, holding at my hips, pulling me to him and I jerk at the contact with his body. My shorts are thin, I can feel every wrinkle in the crotch of his jeans, the heat there, and Ray can feel how I want him.

“Knew it.” He pulls away to mouth words at my cheek, and his hands are sinking, falling low and when they touch my cock I pull my head away, breathing hard and fast. “I gotta,” he tells me, and his mouth won’t stop, his lips making little shapes over my ear and I imagine purple horseshoes and gleaming pots of gold.

“Ray.” I shake my head, because he made me promise, and if not for this, then for what?

He traces the length of me, his fingers lingering where the fabric is damp, not yet soaked through, and his head drops, and I shudder to imagine him looking at me.

“Can you breathe, Ben?” he asks me again, knowing the answer, and I want to frown at him but I’m not, I’m holding still because Ray sounds as though he is breathless, because Ray is lifting up my shirt and sliding his hands down into the heat inside my shorts.

He squeezes softly and I make a noise, turning my head away from him and then back when he squeezes again. His eyes are fierce. “Yeah,” he whispers, and there’s discovery in his face, and he is swallowing, watching my mouth.

His fingers glide up, measuring, and I lick my lips. He watches that too, and mimics the action.

“Ray.” I am always saying his name. Ray does not seem to mind.

“I gotta,” he repeats himself and bends in a little. He presses his mouth to the spot of skin on my chest near my collar where my shirt does not cover, and then his hands grip my shorts from the inside and pull.

The air is warm, but I shiver. I am naked from the waist down, and Ray kisses my raised flesh, works down to kiss me through the fabric and my hands come up at last when his lips reach my navel.

“Ray.” My fingers curl around his biceps, my palm over his tattoo, and Ray falls to his knees, leaving my hands to slide to his hair.

It is slick and oily, but I hardly notice when he exhales and touches his tongue to the head of my cock. It is more than I ever expected and I make a noise, sink my teeth into my lip for a moment until he does it again, and I feel the curious, surprised hum of approval he makes as he rolls the taste of me on his tongue. He swallows it and licks me again, and I close my eyes, wonder if I am sleeping, dreaming of neon marshmallows and Ray using his mouth to pleasure me.

He is still licking, experimenting one sweet swipe at a time, and it’s only when my hips jerk forward that he brings his hands back. His fingers curl and stroke, once, twice, and then he tries again, putting his mouth where his tongue had been.

“Ray.” I am croaking now. Ray just tightens his lips a fraction and moves. Heat and suction and Ray’s tongue, working the tip of my cock like a piece of candy between his teeth. He strokes, swirls, tastes, and then slides his hand; it moves easily, and I wonder if it is the hand I licked.

I stick out my tongue but can only taste my own mouth, and then Ray repeats his action, allowing more of my cock into his mouth. I am thinking of saying his name, but Ray is not listening to me. Ray is building rhythm, humming around sensitive flesh, sucking, taking in more, stroking, and I can’t help but push into him again.

His tongue slides under me, easily, and then he pulls his head back, smacking his lips, using them to form a marshmallow-soft circle.

My eyes open and I find Ray watching me, his look sly from through his lashes.

“Give it to me, Fraser,” he orders. I wonder if he is drunk, but he is still watching me, his lips red now, bee-stung, trailing spit, and he grins before he ducks his head back down. His mouth opens, and I stare at Ray as his swollen lips slide down my cock.

 _Yeah_. I imagine Ray’s voice, his breath hot in my ear, and I inch forward, watching my dick disappear beneath Ray’s hand, into Ray’s mouth. Dick. Ray’s word. Dirty and raw, like this, like Ray, and Ray wants me to.

My hands sink into the thick mess of Ray’s hair, clinging, urging him forward, and his lips meet his hand.

I think my head is back. I am gasping, pushing, pulling, maneuvering Ray until he does it again and again. He swallows, and my body is throbbing, his mouth is wet and hot and sweet like Ray. Dirty like Ray. I can’t breathe. I cannot breathe but I can hear Ray, _yeah, Fraser, fuck yeah, please,_ so I thrust forward. I give it to him.

Ray grunts, and sucks, his mouth stretched wide and his eyes open and I am dreaming, I must be, so I curl my fingertips into his scalp and feel his hair on the backs of my knuckles and I push myself into his mouth, and feel the head of my cock slide against Ray’s tongue.

 _Yeah_. His bold eyes tell me and I say his name, maybe too much, Ray swallows, tightens, licks, and I thrust again, again, again because Ray takes it. I give it to him and Ray takes it _fuck yeah_ and yes, I throw my head back, let Ray suck my cock until I am coming, I’m gasping and speaking and jerking and distantly I can feel Ray swallowing, pulling away but I am arched against something hard and I welcome the pain.

My hands reach out and grasp nothing, and I blink as my breathing slows and stutters in my chest. Ray is on his feet and shifting restlessly a few feet from me. His fingers run across his lips before he drops them, there is a stain on his shirt, a large wet patch that he doesn’t touch.

I put my hand behind me, feel it crunch some of the food still scattered across the countertop.

“I have to…” It takes effort to form words, and while I search for the right ones, Ray’s eyes stray down, to where I am still naked. I raise my chin, and Ray’s eyes go wide, fly back up to my face. “I have to clean this before Turnbull arrives.”

“I gotta…” he starts but pauses when I flinch, and then he grins, the grin that stabs, the grin that’s an act. “I gotta go home, got work.” Ray is explaining as though I don’t know that he has to leave and I smile in return.

Ray pulls in an audible breath, his fingers scrubbing at his lips, and then he ducks his head and reaches for the door.

“See you in a few hours, Fraser,” he tosses out with his back to me, and I curl my hands around the edge of the island, letting marshmallows fall to the floor. I want to ask if he has broken his promise, or if I did, but he is gone, and I can just hear the careful sound of his steps on the red carpeting as he walks down the hall to the door.


End file.
